Frayed
by NancyMay
Summary: A little story set in 5.8. How might things have gone when Lucien decided to tell Matthew he solved more cases drunk than the police did sober.


Alice sat looking over Lake Wendouree, still angry. Lucien was an idiot and Matthew just wound him up like a clockwork toy. She never lost her temper at work, it was unprofessional, but this time she had to let both of them know what a pair of school boys they were, and she was pretty sure the wrong people would have heard. How she had got through the current autopsy with Wallace, she didn't know. He only served to make her angrier.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

She had gone to find Lucien to start an autopsy on a sudden death. The woman had been found slumped over the steering wheel of her car, holding up the traffic at the crossroads of Pleasant Street south and Eyre Street. As she had neared the office she heard Matthew berate Lucien for being drunk then Lucien had shouted back that he solved more crimes drunk that the police did sober. While there may have been some truth to the statement, it was not a good idea to point that out in front of the other officers, and there was an atmosphere you could cut with a knife as she entered the room.

'Go home, Blake!' Matthew yelled, 'you're suspended until you sober up or this mess can be cleared up.'

Blake drew himself up to his full height and glowered at the Superintendant, Matthew glowered back, ' Out!'

Lucien turned and stormed out, narrowly avoiding knocking Alice over,

'Lucien!' she called, then turned to Matthew, 'Superintendant, what is going on? There is an autopsy to be done.'

Matthew had gone to watch Lucien leave, 'Get Wallace.' He snapped.

'Don't you speak to me like that!' She looked up at him, scowling. 'I need Dr Blake to do the autopsy.'

'Well he can't,' they both walked out, 'you have seen the paper?'

'Yes, and we both know it isn't true.' She looked after Lucien's retreating back 'Lucien! Stop!'

He lurched into the wall, but stopped.

'Matthew this has to be sorted out now.' She snapped. 'You need to tell him to get into the morgue, he has a job to do.'

'He won't have a job when Melbourne find out.' Matthew grunted.

'Oh for god's sake!' She threw her hands in the air, 'you are like two boys who can't play together properly. You fire him regularly, then re-hire him, because he's the best, drunk or sober. I'm the one who has to work with him in the morgue, if I can cope with it then you should have learned to by now! And so should Melbourne!'

They were standing together now, and Alice could smell the alcohol on him.

'What the hell have you been drinking?' She snapped, 'not whisky.'

'Grappa,' he muttered, 'homemade.'

'Bloody hell,' she hissed, 'that stuff'll be like rocket fuel. No wonder you're drunk! Right, Matthew, read him the riot act, I'll get coffee.'

'Alice, it's not that easy.' Matthew hissed, 'I can't let him get away with it.'

'No you can't, but we can deal with that later, or you can fire him later, and re-hire him tomorrow, as usual. But I am not doing an autopsy with Wallace.'

'Wallace doesn't know his arse from his elbow,' Lucien grunted.

'You!' Alice turned to him, 'need to apologise to Matthew and mean it! How stupid can you be, drinking homemade grappa? Have you no sense? What is Jean going to say when she finds out? For god's sake, Lucien, use that brain of yours, think what you are doing, to yourself, to Jean. I bet she has no idea what you did, how hurt is she going to be?' She put her hands on her hips, 'You can deal with that when you get home, now, both of you, sort it! Now!'

'Sorry, Alice, no.' Matthew could be as stubborn as a mule sometimes and this was one of those times, 'you will have to make do with Wallace, Blake is going home to sober up and will not be doing any autopsies or interfering in investigations, now or for the foreseeable future.'

'Idiots! The pair of you!' She turned and stormed off leaving the two men staring after her.

Matthew glared at Lucien and stomped, as best he could, up the stairs back to his office where, suddenly, the rest of his men were concentrating on their paperwork.

Lucien, for his part, and knowing how right Alice was, sloped off in the direction of home and, what he assumed would be, a quietly seething Jean.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Alice huffed, exasperated and disappointed in both of them, and headed off to the morgue to join Dr Wallace.

He hadn't started the autopsy, not even undressed the body. Lucien usually got on with it, waiting for her to enter to room with a,

'You started without me,' and a raised eyebrow.

All Dr Wallace got was a stern stare. She picked up the clip board with the information on, name and age.

'So,' she addressed the body, softly, 'what happened to you, Mrs Walker?'

Wallace ignored Alice's question and started to look over the deceased, calling out anything he saw,

'Emerging bruise on the bridge of the nose, signs of a nose bleed.'

Alice wrote it down, then helped the doctor undress her, examining each item of clothing. A cardigan with frayed cuffs, a blouse, thin cotton, some wear on the collar, sleeves shortened to disguise frayed cuffs, she thought. Lightweight skirt, with signs it had been inexpertly altered as the wearer had apparently lost weight round the waist. Slip and underwear not as white as they would have been when they were purchased, her stockings were repaired at the ankle and her shoes needed a good polish. Eventually Mrs Myrtle Walker lay with just a strip of sheeting over her breasts and hips, for decency, Dr Wallace muttered.

'Can we just get on with the autopsy, that,' he nodded to the clothes she was examining, 'is the police's job. Now, victim is fifty years old, underweight...'

'Underweight?' Alice snorted, 'she's malnourished, and how do you know precisely how old she is?'

'She's one of my patients,' Wallace grunted back, 'may I continue?'

Alice glared at him, she really wasn't having a good day. He should have said she was known to him, Lucien would have.

'... as I said, underweight, fingertip bruising on the upper arms, some days old. Broken fingernails, recent burn to left arm. Abdomen appears bloated...'

'...consistent with severe malnutrition...' Alice muttered as she noted Wallace's words on the form.

'Dr Harvey!' He looked up at her and scowled. 'If you don't mind.'

'... or some disease,' she continued, 'just pointing out reasons for her condition, but if you were her physician...'

'Mrs Walker came to me rarely.' He sighed, 'there was little money in the house, he drank most of it away, and he was an abusive drunk. She last came to me two weeks ago to have the burn treated. she said she had done it on the iron, and it is consistent with touching the edge of an iron.'

'Did you treat her for anything else?'

'No! Now can we get on?'

Alice just shrugged her shoulders.

Dr Wallace took up a scalpel and started to make the incision to expose the internal organs. There was little to no fat between the skin and ribcage. He peeled back the thin and dry skin and exposed all the internal organs. It was immediately apparent that Mrs Walker was malnourished but that was due to the rigid end of her oesophagus, that, when Dr Wallace touched and removed it, was found to be largely composed of a tumour.

'Good grief!' Alice gasped, 'she must have been in tremendous pain, did she not complain of it to you?'

Wallace did not reply, he just stared All Mrs Walker had complained of was chronic indigestion and he had prescribed milk of magnesia.

'Doctor? Doctor!' Alice disturbed his chain of thought, 'are you alright?'

'She just complained of indigestion,' he whispered, 'I thought it was just a poor diet and prescribed the usual.'

'You didn't investigate?'

'How? The only way to be sure would be to open her up. She hated any idea of surgery, and if I did find it, what then?'

''Make her final days comfortable.' Alice's eyes filled with tears, 'take away her pain.'

'The cost...'

'What cost?' Alice was astounded, 'she was in pain, awful pain. You did nothing but give her milk of magnesia! Surely you could have stood the cost of some pain relief, or are you just in it for the money?'

'No, I...'

Alice tore off her gloves and stormed out of the morgue, leaving a stunned and open mouthed Dr Wallace.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That was how she found herself sitting on a bench staring out over Lake Wendouree. She was profoundly saddened at the death of a woman she didn't know existed until she was brought into the mortuary. She was sure if she had been Lucien's patient he would have cared for her much better. She heaved a huge sigh and wondered what next? Mrs Walker was not a case for the police, except to inform her husband of her passing, so she didn't need to see Matthew, yet she did. She, at least, felt the need to apologise for her outburst and her language, even though she firmly believed she was more in the right than him. She would leave Lucien to Jean, hopefully by the time she was to attend Christmas dinner with them the waters would have calmed. She had taken her exasperation out on one of the people whose hands were tied, and that wasn't right.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The normal buzz of the station had resumed when Dr Harvey appeared again. It went instantly quiet, which was why Matthew looked up, to find her standing in front of his desk.

'Can I help you, doctor?' He asked smoothly. Her face betrayed no emotion, no sign of how she felt about the situation or him.

'May I have a word, Superintendant? In private.' If she was going to apologise she wasn't going to do it in front of his subordinates.

Matthew pushed himself, stiffly, off his chair and stumped towards the side office. He closed the door, softly behind him.

'Superintendant,' she started, 'Matthew, I want to apologise for my behaviour earlier. It was rude, my language was less than professional, and you are right to suspend Dr Blake.'

He looked at her, knowing it dented her pride to do this, and if it had been Munro or Carlyle she wouldn't have. But the three of them were more than colleagues, more than a team, they were friends.

'Apology accepted.' He half smiled. 'You're probably right, anyway. Wallace is not noted for his insight into the criminal mind, his autopsies are brief and he doesn't attend crime scenes. Much as Lucien goes around expounding theories I like him there. And he was right about his skill in solving crimes, though without us nothing would come of it. I need a police surgeon, how about you take it on, until we know what is happening?'

'Me?'

'You've done it before,' he reasoned, 'you're a qualified doctor, you have experience of working with the best, so, yes, you do it.'

'What about Melbourne? Don't they have to approve the application?' She was reeling from the offer. She had expected him to tell her never to speak to him like that again. Instead he accepts the apology and offers her a better position, albeit, temporarily.

'As long as I don't re-hire Lucien, until all this has been sorted, they won't really care. Just don't start being him in a skirt.' He laughed.

'If I get the urge I'll put slacks on then.' She laughed back. 'Honestly, Matthew, thank you, for not telling me never to darken your station again.'

'Well, that could be difficult, considering last night.' He winked.

'Didn't Jean think it strange you weren't there for dinner?' Alice relaxed and rested her bottom on the desk.

'She didn't say anything this morning, and I did warn her not to keep anything back, said I was working late, on a private case.'

Alice threw back her head and roared with laughter. 'I'm sure Jean knew exactly what you meant.'

'That's as maybe...' he closed the gap between them, 'now, doctor, how can we close this deal?'

'Oh, I'm sure we'll think of something.' She leant forward and lightly kissed his lips, 'for now I have to get back to the morgue. I don't expect Wallace will have tidied up.' She sighed and squeezed his hand as she left.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I'm sure Alice won't be the police surgeon, and that Wallace, whoever he is, will take Blake's place, but we can dream.


End file.
